June 23, 2008

I am super excited because we are about to launch our new website at Eternal Eyes Photography, which is a business that Amber and I have started up with our good friends Edie and Tjibbe.

We just purchased our domain and our template this weekend on BluDomain.com, which is a professional hosting place for the websites of photographers. Our domain has been put in place and we are now awaiting our access codes in order to be able to go in and set things up.

We’ve already covered a few weddings, done some engagement photos, pregnancy photos and also taken studio shots for a young actress that we know who will be appearing in a major motion picture this fall. Many of the shots that we’ve taken will be up on the site to give viewers an idea of our capabilities, which, hopefully, will help us get some more business.

Things look like they are coming together, so I will make the announcement here first when the site is up and running. Until then, I’ve been bartering with some friends for services.

June 20, 2008

It was during the same week that Amber and I found out we were pregnant that I also received the news that Raul “No Bull” Vargas, one of the members of “Team Goodguy,” passed away.Brandon, another member of “Team Goodguy” called me one day to tell me that Raul had been involved in an accident over the Memorial Day weekend and that he had passed away sometime during the next week.I found Raul’s obituary in the El Paso Times.

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I want to now take some time to eulogize my friend and fellow U.S. Army team member, who “slipped into the wind” much too early and before any of us could have ever imagined.

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I met Raul when I was stationed at Fort Bragg ; he arrived one day with his friend, Javier Hinojo.The two had gone through Basic Training and AIT together and were both sent to Fort Bragg directly from the Defense Language Institute (DLI) when the instructors found out that they both already spoke Spanish.Now, most of the soldiers in our unit were Spanish linguists who had spent six months or so on vacation at DLI ( Monterey , California ) learning Spanish, so we used to give Raul a hard time because he missed out on Monterey.

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Raul quickly became a friend and a trusted team member because of his good attitude and his good sense of humor, as well as just being an all-around Goodguy.Raul and his wife Julie used to have the whole team over to their house for cookouts and hangouts; I remember that Raul always had some iced schooners in the freezer, and would always offer his guests a cold beer or a homemade margarita.Raul loved Clint Eastwood’s movies and he always had Aerosmith on the radio – Raul even named his son after the lead singer – Steven Tyler Vargas.

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Raul was deployed to Honduras at one point after a hurricane had devastated some portions of the country.Raul translated for medics and received a commendation for his work.Later, Raul was deployed with Team Goodguy to Fort Huachuca to test the short-lived Ground-Based Common Sensor (GBCS), which looked like Hummer with a telescopic trashcan on top.We all spent days in the sweltering heat, testing the GBCS.

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It was at Fort Huachuca that we developed the Goodguy Standard when it came to meeting a challenge: we had gone to Vinnie’s Pizza and the standard was to eat 20 disgustingly hot buffalo wings, which would earn us a t-shirt and a picture on the “Wall of Flame.”The team later met the challenge back at Fort Bragg when we all did the “rooster,” which entailed eating two separate saltine crackers, topped with an oyster, Tabasco , black pepper, and several other hot things.

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I left the military back in 2000, and Raul hosted my going away party at his house and attended a farewell dinner at a local Thai restaurant.We went our separate ways, but I always knew what Raul was up to.

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Raul moved from Fort Bragg to San Antonio , where he earned his sergeant stripes and became something of a Physical Training (PT) guru.Apparently, the training at Fort Bragg was so intense that when Raul got to San Antonio he was much more fit than the standard soldiers there, and people took notice.After a few years, Raul earned two more promotions and ended up as an E-7 recruiter in Phoenix , Arizona where he “slipped into the wind.”

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I wish that I had maintained better contact with my friend, Raul.I wish that while I was in the military, while we were serving together, I would have been a better witness of my faith.I don’t know if Raul ever had a chance to meet Jesus, and that’s what seems to me to be the saddest part of his passing.I hope someone else had the chance to show Jesus to Raul since our time in the military.I hope Raul had the opportunity to know Jesus.

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We don’t normally think about people our own age, our friends, having untimely accidents and dying, or at least I don’t.It really causes me to think about the witness that I am to my friends.Am I more interested in having a good time with my friends than I am about being a good witness to them?I definitely had fun with a friend like Raul…I just wish that I could have involved my faith a little more back then so that I could know for sure that I did the best thing that a friend could ever do: point a friend to God.

June 18, 2008

So, I read today where a woman was injured by a thong from Victoria ’s Secret.The injured woman, one Macrida Patterson, was approximately 52 years old at the time of her injury, which, in my opinion, is approximately 32 years too old to be wearing a thong in the first place.

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According to court documents, in a blatant act of defiance, the tightly stretched thong propelled a small decorative object directly into Mrs. Patterson’s eye.Luckily enough, her good eye was able to find the number of the nearest lawyer, who quickly emerged from some nearby pond scum to assess the situation and file a lawsuit.

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Now, I would like to bring up a few points as we analyze this clearly relevant case, which is in no way taking up valuable court time or making a mockery of the justice system.

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My first thought is that, “If the thong does not fit, you must acquit.”The article that I read made no mention of the size of Mrs. Patterson’s derriere or the size of the thong in question.Most thongs are approximately the size of a rubber band, so it stands to reason that if Mrs. Patterson is anywhere over the age of 20 and has, at any point in her life, consumed a calorie, the thong should be utterly too small and inappropriate to be used as anything other than a hair band

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My thoughts are that Mrs. Patterson was looking for a lawsuit when she purchased her thong.Had she been able to actually get the thong onto her body, I am sure that she would had to have been rushed to a hospital as a consequence of the tourniquet-like effect that would have claimed both of her legs and all prospects of late-age childbirth.No doubt, the Jaws-O-Life would have played a part in saving Mrs. Patterson from herself.This situation would have necessitated another lawsuit.

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So, we are left with the fact that Mrs. Patterson got hit in the eye with a decorative piece of her thong.In the real world, we would not reward her for blatantly dumb behavior…we would issue her an eye patch and make jokes about her being a thong-wearing pirate.But, we aren’t talking about the real world; we are talking about California …and in California anything goes.

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So remember, some people make their fortunes in oil, gold, stocks or technology.These people are fools!It is much easier to make a fortune in stupidity…all you need is a good dumb idea and good lawyer.

June 15, 2008

Well, I went on Friday and had Lasik eye surgery at Dr. Bradley Bowman‘s office. To say the least, I was, initially, quite scared of having my eyes propped open, like something from A Clockwork Orange, while a doctor fidgeted with my eyes using some rudimentary instruments. The reality is that Lasik is nothing like that…at least not after you’ve had a couple of tablets of Valium(r) and made peace with God.

I had all of my eye testing done a few weeks prior, so on Friday, I just had to walk into Dr. Bowman’s office and go through some preliminary and all-important steps, which included putting a large blue, Smurf-like hairnet over my head and taking some Valium(r). The good doctor gave me some numbing eye drops and drew on my eyeball using a blue Sharpie(c).

From there, we headed over to a state of the art room, where my eyelids were, in separate order, taped open. After this, a plastic insert was shoved under my eyelids, which prevented me from blinking and, amazingly, from screaming. Next, a suction-cup looking device was pressed down upon my eyeball and a laser device, much like a drill press, came down and cut a flap in the lens of my eye. The feeling was kind of weird…like a wolverine was tickling my eyeball with its claws.

After opening up my eye, a precision-guided laser started making some pretty high-tech sounds…probably like ‘Ol Sparky used to make during its glory days. I was warned that I would smell something “cooking” when the laser got to going; to me, it smelled like cooking a rotten egg. After the popping ended, my lens was placed back in its original position and the process was repeated on the other eye.

I was given some nifty goggles, that made me look like a racquetball player, and was told not to touch my eyes for a while. The results were instantaneous and miraculous. I never could have dreamed that the world was so clear. I can now see better without my glasses than I ever could with my glasses…the colors are brighter and the details are so much sharper. I’m still in the healing phase, so I am still experiencing, at time, fuzziness, but I’m sure that will clear up soon.

So to all of you who wear glasses, if I can encourage you in any way, I would like for you to remember this: “Nana-nana-boo-boo, I got Lasik and you didn’t!” And, if after my encouragement, you too would like to have Lasik, I would encourage you to do so and, if you happen to be in the DFW area, I would definitely recommend Dr. Bradley Bowman!